


five steps to a friendship

by candybeat



Series: the first years [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1861473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candybeat/pseuds/candybeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>how yachi has endeared herself to tsukishima</p>
            </blockquote>





	five steps to a friendship

1.

Tsukishima doesn’t know why he bothers teaching these idiots. Hinata gets distracted every time somebody mentions the word volleyball, and Kageyama gets distracted whenever Hinata gets distracted. Tsukishima contemplates throwing them both off a cliff if Kageyama says the word “dumbass” again. It’s honestly like the pot calling the kettle “black.”

He admits that he has fun bossing them around, but is it really worth the hassle? Does he really care?

When he sees Hinata twitching and eyes moving towards the television screen behind him, he really regrets going to a food place to teach them and slams a book in front of him, “Hey, if you’re not gonna focus, I’m not going to waste my time teaching you.”

“Yeah, dumbass,” Kageyama agrees.

Tsukishima turns to him, a nerve threatening to pop, “Don’t think I don’t see you doodling volleyballs on the side. What are you? single-celled?”

“Single-celled?” The two idiots say at the same time, “What’s that?”

He will stab them with the straw. He will. He swears.

From outside the fast-food place, he sees Yachi passing by. Salvation. Immediately, he stands up and quickly grabs a hold of her, ignoring the confused voices of the two idiots. “Yachi-san, I don’t want to commit murder,” at her confused and panicked look, he adds, “Kageyama and Hinata.”

He says no more, because she understands already. Tsukishima sighs, very relieved when she nods and comes back inside with him.

Hinata shines like the sun when he sees her, “Yachi-saaaaan!” but Kageyama pokes him at his side with a look, whispering, “This is the opposite of what we wanted!”

Tsukishima and Yachi sit next to each other and looks at them. “You know she can hear you, right?”

Kageyama’s eyes widen, and a flurry of emotions run across his face, “That’s not what I meant!”

“Yeah,” Hinata adds, waving his hands, “we didn’t want to bother you, because we already always ask you for help!”

Tsukishima looks unimpressed as always, but Yachi waves their worries away, “It’s fine. I like helping you guys and making sure you pass.”

They all have awed looks in their faces. Right then and there, Hinata felt that he might cry. Kageyama’s usual mean look is replaced by a small touched quirk of the lips. Tsukishima breaks the moment by smirking, “She wouldn’t have to if you guys weren’t so dumb.”

“Hey!” Hinata says, hand over his heart, “I’m offended.”

Yachi places a hand on Kageyama’s arm before he tries adding to it, “I’m sure Tsukishima doesn’t mean it,” and she gives him a placating smile, “what were you guys studying before I got here?”

“Well…” Kageyama points and Yachi does her best to explain. Hinata looks and listens and takes notes.

Later, after Kageyama and Hinata bow their heads in thanks (at Tsukishima too), he turns to Yachi and sighs, “Thank you very much for coming with me and helping, Yachi-san.”

She smiles and gives him a thumbs up, “Guess you owe me one, Tsukishima-kun.”

2.

It turns out that Yachi does need a favor earlier than expected. During lunch break, she comes to his classroom and smiles when she sees that he’s all alone. Inwardly, Tsukishima panics. This will not end well for him.

“Tsukishima-san!” she exclaims, as if he’s the person she’s been looking for, “can you come with me after school?”

“Where?” He asks, which sounds like he’s agreeing, but he’s not. “And for what?”

“Kiyoko-san has asked me to buy supplies for the third years’ farewell party, and I’d feel more comfortable if I had someone with me,” Yachi smiles. This could go two ways, Tsukishima hypothesizes, he could be designated assistant to her forever or this is a one time thing that will never happen again. He weighs his options; it could go either way, really, but is it worth the hassle?

He looks at Yachi, who’s short and nice and smart, and decides that it shouldn’t be too bad. Besides, Yamaguchi’s practicing after school again.

“Okay,” He says, and Yachi’s smile starts glowing like Hinata’s.

“Really?” She says, relieved, “That was pretty easy, I thought I had to bribe you or something.”

—-

Later on, they pass by a bake shop and Tsukishima stops, dead on his tracks. Yachi walks about five feet before she notices he has stopped.

“Tsukishima-kun, what’s wrong?” She asks, but it seems like he’s hypnotized by the open kitchen concept the bakery has.

“Yachi-san, bribe me.” He says, turning towards her with determined eyes.

Yachi’s confused, “What?”

Tsukishima drops the bags in his arms to the ground, “Please bribe me to carry all these bags.”

“Okay?” Yachi draws out the word, still unsure of what he wants to happens. “Bribe you with what?”

And then this is the moment that, even after some days, Yachi can’t believe it happens. Before her eyes, the expression on Tsukishima’s face turns from one of maturity to one of childish glee, like she just said the magic words.

“Please buy me that cake over there,” He says, grabbing to pick up the bags and entering the store before she even says okay.

Yachi enters the store cautiously, and wonders if she’s entered some kind of alternate universe. Was this the same Tsukishima that left school with her?

He points to the cut slices of strawberry shortcakes that are lined up prettily on the store front display. Yachi sighs and goes up to counter, “Hello, can I have one slice of the strawberry shortcake, please?”

“You’re not eating, Yachi-san?” He says, as if it was obvious that there was no way in hell that he was going to share one slice of it with her.

Yachi closes her gaping mouth and turns back to the cashier, “I’m sorry, can you make that two, then?”

Tsukishima’s gained back some of his normal personality when they seat themselves at the table, “Uhm, please don’t mention this to the others,” he says, kind of sheepish and embarrassed (she didn’t even know that was a possible combination of an expression on his face).

“Well,” Yachi starts, taking a bite of the cake from her fork, “I can be bribed.”

At Tsukishima’s expectant look, she laughs and waves her hand, “I’m kidding, Tsukishima-kun. You’re secret’s safe with me. I don’t know what you’re worried about, though. It’s just cake.”

“It’s strawberry shortcake,” he corrects, as if there’s a distinct difference.

For Yachi, the only difference is the way she views Tsukishima.

3.

“You just smiled right there! Tsukishima-kun, don’t turn away and hide from me! You just smiled!” Yachi laughs; it echoes, tinkling like bells, in the empty room.

He glares at her, wary, which is completely different from his relaxed state earlier, when they had been taking a break from studying for their finals. “I don’t know what you’re saying. If anything, I should be disgusted at the low quality of your math jokes.”

“Oh?” Yachi teases, “I suppose you have better math jokes than I do?”

“Please,” Tsukishima pushes his chair closer to the desk and goes back to reviewing, “Anything is better than your sinegerines over cosinegerines equals tangerines.”

Under the desk, Yachi’s foot nudges his, “It was good enough to get a smile out of you, though.” He doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

When Tsukishima isn’t looking, Yachi chances a peek at him and finds the slight quirk of his lips upward. He was so smiling.

 

4.

Before she steps in the Tsukishima household, Yachi takes off her shoes and announces, “Please pardon my intrusion!”

When he notices her looking around, “My dad’s at work, my mom and older brother are buying groceries right now.”

She frowns, dejected at the information he had just given her, “So, I don’t get to see them at all?”

He looks at her like she’s the weirdest thing he’s seen in a long time, “You want to see my family?”

“I just want to see,” she says, gesturing to his whole self, “where that came from.”

He gives her a very fake smile and ushers her into the kitchen, “Ha-ha. You’re so funny. Why don’t you start getting the ingredients prepared for the chocolates?”

She starts taking them out of the plastic bag that he had been carrying, while Tsukishima grabs a chair to sit on. “So, does Kageyama get a special chocolate all to himself?”

“…no,” She sticks her tongue out at his teasing, “everybody on the team gets chocolate.”

“Even me?” He asks, despite knowing the answer.

She swats his hand away when he tries to eat one of the chopped chocolate pieces that she was going to melt. “Yes. Although, I bet that if you could choose, you’d rather get cake.

He nods, taking no offense at that statement, “Of course,” he watches as she chops the chocolate bar into smaller pieces. She then places all of it in a metal bowl and puts in on stovetop.

“Tsukishima-kun,” she murmurs, “where do you keep your spoons?”

“I don’t know. Mom tries to mix it up every once in a while just so she can watch Dad have a hard time looking for them,” he explains, and he wishes he was joking.

Yachi looks at him over her shoulder and gives him a look, before going back and opening each drawer until she can find a spoon. “You can at least help me.”

He heaves such a heavy sigh, “Fine,” and then stands up to help her. Just as he’s opening one of the drawers, he hears the voice of his brother by the door. Mentally, he’s already preparing himself over the fuss that his brother is going to cause.

When the door opens, Tsukishima Akiteru enters noisily, the plastics on his arms crinkling, “Kei! Come help Mom carry these groceries.”

At that, Yachi turns to him, gleeful and a bit apprehensive, “They know I’m here, right?”

He scratches his head, “Well, all I said was that a friend was coming over. They could’ve assumed it was Yamaguchi, as usual.”

“Wait,” She says, panicked, “won’t they get mad I’m intruding or something?” She immediately starts looking for places to hide herself.

“Yachi-san, what are you trying to do?” He says, putting a hand on her shoulder, just as Akiteru barges in the kitchen.

“Oh,” Akiteru says, his voice curving with assumptions, “Kei. You didn’t tell me a girlfriend was coming over.”

Yachi squeaks from behind Tsukishima, “We’re not going out,” he says.

She nods, “Yes, Tsukishima-kun was just letting me borrow his kitchen to make chocolates.”

Akiteru looks visibly disappointed, but introduces himself with a smile anyway, “I’m Tsukishima Akiteru,” and then slings an arm around his brother’s shoulder, “this kid’s older brother!”

Yachi smiles, “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Yachi Hitoka.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Yachi-san,” He says, smiling brightly, and Yachi can’t help but compare the two brothers. “You mentioned chocolates?”

She nods, “Yes! I’m making some for the whole volleyball club.”

Akiteru looks awed, his mouth slowly forming the word, “wow.” He looks at his brother and says, “I can’t believe you managed to make friends with somebody so nice and cute.” He goes on to hug his brother fully, fake sobbing on his shoulder, while Tsukishima looks the other way, embarrassed. “I didn’t think this day would ever come.”

Yachi covers the laugh that threatens to escape her, but Tsukishima hears it anyway and looks coldly in her direction.

—-

After Tsukishima ushers both his mother and brother out of the kitchen, he settles back on the chair he was sitting in. “Ugh, they’re so embarrassing,” he says, laying his head on the countertop, while Yachi brings the melted chocolate and the molds on the counter next to him.

“Nah,” She disagrees, “You guys are really cute.”

Tsukishima looks at her, watches as she carefully pours the chocolate into the molds, then regards the sad smile on her face. “Is it just you and your mom at your place?”

Yachi hums in agreement, “Yup, she and my dad divorced a long time ago, and I’m an only child.”

He doesn’t need to ask if it gets lonely or if she wishes her home was livelier.

“But! Mom is really great. Even if she’s busy, she always makes it on time to have dinner with me. She’s also really involved in everything that I do!” She says, her hands waving and emphasizing her points for her.

Tsukishima smiles, and Yachi doesn’t notice. She gets really pumped up when she talks about her mom, and then she gets emotional about it and cries. The last thing she wants is to cry and have Tsukishima call her a cry baby. So, she focuses on the chocolate.

(If she did cry, “pathetic” or “cry baby” would be the last thing on Tsukishima’s mind. But she doesn’t know that. Not yet.)

—-

On Valentine’s day:

“Yachi-san,” Tsukishima starts, when he compares Hinata’s and his’ chocolates, “how come his is bigger than mine?” He feels oddly betrayed by the knowledge, especially after she used his kitchen to make them. He never gets his answer, because the other team members start swarming her.

The old third years had come back from university and all look happy except is for Asahi who looks a little confused, “Why does mine look like Jesus?”

“There, there,” Suga pats his distractedly, taking a bite of his chocolates and then looking like he’s ascended to heaven, “mine are spicy. I love them. How do you make chocolate spicy?”

Daichi just looks in love.

After everybody’s settled down, he finds Yachi with a Kageyama who’s bowing in thanks. Good, he thinks, but she probably wanted to give him honmei…

“Tsukishima-kun!” Yachi whispers loudly, and gestures for him to come closer, “Sorry about the chocolates, but that’s only because you’re also getting cake, okay?”

Tsukishima’s face lights up, before he realizes that people could still see him. “Okay, we’re good then.”

Yachi raises her hand for a high five, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” and his hand meets hers. 

5.

“Tsukishima-kun, I’m scared.” Yachi admits, as they travel on their bus to nationals. “Can you hold my hand or something?”

“Why can’t you ask Kageyama for those things?”

“That’s different,” she says, blushing, “plus he’s all the way in the back, asleep.”

“I could have been sleeping.” He wasn’t. He can’t fall asleep on the bus. He just closes his eyes and pretends to, so nobody bothers him.

“But you’re awake.” She reasons, and Tsukishima sighs.

“Why are you scared? Shouldn’t I be the one who’s afraid?”

“I’m scared because it’s Nationals!” She rests her head back against the seat, “And you’re never afraid. You just glare at everything and then they’re afraid.”

“That’s not true at all.”

“It is very true. You’d make a good captain actually, because all the first years would be afraid of you. You’d probably enjoy bossing them around.”

“And suffer the whining of those two idiots? No, thanks.”

Yachi finally sighs and zones out, drowning in her nervousness, until Tsukishima calls her, “Hitoka.”

And she turns quickly, realizing that this is the first time he’s ever addressed her with her first name. “Hm?”

“Give me your hand.” He says, glad that everybody else was sleeping.

Yachi gives it easily. Tsukishima’s hand is bigger and rougher than hers, but it’s warm. Their hands curl around each other, nothing awkward or tense about it. Just trust.

“We,” Tsukishima says, quietly but surely, as if there’s no room for doubt, “are going to win Nationals, so there’s no need to agonize and worry about it so much.”

“You promise?”

“Would I tell you something so optimistic?” Tsukishima counters, which makes her laugh.

Yachi rubs her eyes, “Tsukishima, you’re such a softie. You’re making me cry.”

“You cry baby.” He teases, with no bite in his words, only the tightening of his hand around hers.


End file.
